The following story first appeared in the Summer 2005 Glenmary Challenge.
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Always Rising to New Challenges
Father Don Tranel has lots of practice adapting to diverse mission cultured
By Father John S. Rausch

When Father Don Tranel was newly ordained in 1988, he moved to Glenmary’s mission in McRae, Ga., with responsibilities for pastoring three counties: Telfair, Wheeler and Dodge. Four core families from Dodge County were driving approximately 50 miles round trip each Sunday to attend Mass in McRae, but other families at that distance had become inactive. So Father Don organized a transition team to explore the possibility of establishing a new mission in Eastman, the county seat of Dodge.

The group researched a list of inactive Catholics, printed commitment cards and spread the news about the new Catholic community through press releases, personal contacts and word of mouth. As the return of commitment cards grew from trickle to flow, Father Don and his transition team scrambled to find a suitable gathering space. “Suitable” in this case meant a vacant building with a hole in the floor where the pot belly stove had sat and a bathroom that leaked.

With skilled labor and sweat equity, the place was patched, the walls painted and a green carpet laid. On Dec. 3, 1989, a year after Father Don arrived in South Georgia, the bishop of Savannah blessed this worship space in Dodge County with 77 Catholics present.

Then, three years later, Father Don was moved to West Virginia. He felt the tug of saying good-bye to Georgia because, he says, “the people were on fire and excitement was in the air.” The Eastman mission was already in the process of building a new and larger church. But what one starts another completes, he reminded himself as he shifted gears for his new assignment.

For the next eight years Father Don drove the winding roads of West Virginia serving missions in Spencer, Grantsville and Elizabeth. He frequently visited one special family with a teenage son dying of bone cancer.

“I walked with them,” he says. “Not a happy scenario, but it brought reason and cause for my going to West Virginia.” And, he adds, “I grew to love the Appalachian culture.”

Then, in 2000, the call came to a new assignment in northeast Mississippi. Father Don again felt the anxiety of gearing up for new challenges. The area had a growing Hispanic population, and he feared the prospect of ministering in Spanish. 

“The will of God will never lead us where the grace of God won’t care for us.” Father Don reminded himself once again of this message printed on his ordination card years earlier. Then, after a crash course in Spanish, he headed to Mississippi to pastor missions in New Albany and Pontotoc, with his residence in New Albany.

Partnering with multicultural workers, Father Don went to work building up the Catholic community by welcoming new parishioners with his elementary Spanish. For his Anglo parishioners, he reached out with strong pastoral skills.

“It’s interesting what God does in God’s providence,” he says. “The last three funerals I had in the Anglo community, I was present when each of those people died.”

In January 2005 Father Don celebrated the last Mass in New Albany before it was turned back to the Diocese of Jackson after 40 years of Glenmary care. It was now an established parish—the ultimate Glenmary goal.

Few missioners of Father Don’s generation have ministered in as many diverse cultural settings (Southern, Appalachian, Hispanic) as he has. So what is next?

Father Don has moved down the road to Pontotoc, another mission with many Spanish-speakers. Once again he is shifting gears and turning for reassurance to that ordination quote about the mix of God’s will and God’s grace.

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